Carstensentriedtofind holesin hertheory.Inanother
experiment,sheandherteamstudiedagroupofhealthy
peopleageseighttoninety-three.Whentheywereasked
howtheywouldliketospendhalfanhouroftime,the
agedifferencesintheirpreferenceswereagainclear.But
whenaskedsimplytoimaginetheywereabouttomove
far away, the age differences again disappeared. The
youngchoseastheolddid.Next,theresearchersasked
themto imaginethatamedical breakthroughhadbeen
madethatwouldaddtwentyyearstotheirlife.Again,the
agedifferencesdisappeared—butthistimetheoldchose
as the young did.
Cultural differences were not significant, either. The
findingsinaHongKongpopulationwereidenticaltoan
American one.Perspective wasallthat mattered.Asit
happened,ayearaftertheteamhadcompleteditsHong
Kongstudy,thenewscameoutthatpoliticalcontrolof
the country would be handed over to China. People
developedtremendousanxietyaboutwhatwouldhappen
to them and their families under Chinese rule. The
researchersrecognizedan opportunity andrepeatedthe
survey. Sure enough, they found that people had
narrowed their social networks to the point that the
differences in thegoals ofyoung andold vanished.A
year after the handover, when the uncertainty had
subsided, the team did the survey again. The age
differencesreappeared.Theydidthestudyyetagainafter
the9/11attacksintheUnitedStatesandduringtheSARS
epidemicthatspreadthroughHongKonginspring2003,
killingthreehundredpeopleinamatterofweeks.Ineach
casetheresultswereconsistent.When,astheresearchers
put it, “life’s fragility is primed,” people’s goals and